Flight From New Troy
by Skilledwarman
Summary: Three ODSTs fight to escape the doomed battle fields of the UNSC colony New Troy


(My first story so any and all feedback is accepted)

Sargent Driscoll dove down into the nearest ditch. He felt his skin blister as a plasma mortar detonated twelve meters out splintering and scorching trees. The Sargent slowly crawled towards a near by river and dug himself into the bank. He breathed heavly as he glanced down at his wrist mounted tac-pad. He nervously held his breath well he accessed his teams vitals. Eleven other troop's vitals scrawled over the screen. He breathed a slight sigh of relief. All his team's pulses were highly elevated, yet still present.

The moment was however, short lived as more plasma mortars rained down. The Sargent reached for his MA5B out of instinct despite knowing he had dropped it sometime ago. "Fuck me..." he growled and pulled his binoculars from his waist. He quickly scanned the woods, only able to see two of his men, Private First Class James Dyson and Corporal Luke hackman.

In the distance he could still see the burned ruins of the city of New Troy. The city was the capital of the planet of which was it's namesake. He and his squad were members of the elite 105th infantry. Hell jumpers. The very name of their unit able to strike fear into the heart of any member of the lower covenant species, and represent a potentially worthy foe to Brutes and Elites alike. However, even ODSTs aren't invincible. And they'd found that out the hard way, a full on siege from two full covenant armored battalions from the 4th fleet of redemption.

Now they were in the midest of a botched attempt to fallback to the Admiral Cole memorial space port seventeen mile's south of New Troy. To make matters worse, due to inaccurate field maps, he and his fire team had been split from the remainder of the squad and forced into the woods when they lost their Warthog to one of their own minefields. Driscoll shook off the thoughts. He only had one mission now, get his troops off this damn rock before the covenant decide to glass it.

He thumb his earpiece and yelled "Dyson, Hackman, get over here, NOW!". The two ODSTs glanced at each other, nodded, and Hackman counted down from three on his fingers before the two made a bolt for the river bed.

"Shit sarge, we thought they fried your ass with that first bombardment!" yelled Dyson. "Im glad they didn't though, we got NO clue were they space port is." he laughed with a nod towards Hackman.

"I guess its your lucky day marine..." muttered Driscoll as he removed his M6 standard side arm from the holister under his left arm. "How are you two with weapons?" he asked

Hackman quickly looked over his kit. "I've got three grenades, my M6 with three and half-ish clips, and my DMR with 4 clips excluding my current one" he said.

"Could do worse" muttered Driscoll. "What have you got Dyson?"

"Uh, not much. Lost my sidearm when we flipped, rifles gone. Hell all I got is that M7 that was stowed in the gunpit. And as for ammo, well I got a few clips." he said with a shrug.

Before anyone could respond Driscoll flashed a hand sign, silencing the fire team. "What is it sarge? What you hearing?" asked Dyson nervously.

"Its not what im hearing thats getting to me, its what im NOT," he responded. "Is anyone else NOT hearing those damn mortars anymore?" Driscoll asked glancing at the ODSTs.

"Uhh... ok, thats a little unsettling" Hackman responded.

Driscoll slowly eased his head over the bank. After a quick scan he lowered himself back down. He flashed a few more quick motions which were met by nods from his men. The three of them slowly eased into the slow flowing waters of the river and crossed one by one. When they were all nestled in the underbrush Driscoll breathed a slight sigh of relief. He and his men climb from the river and moved back about a dozen meters from the bank. He was about to open his mouth to give his team a break down of his plan when he heard a familiar and dreaded humming sound. "Shit every one down, NOW!" he yelled as he and his men hit the dirt. A few seconds later a spirt drop ship swung in low over the tree tops, banking in for a landing on the bank he and his men had just crossed over from. Driscoll and the others breathlessly watched as the tuning fork shaped drop ship slowly decended till its turret hovered a meter of the ground. The sides of the spirt opened and a pair of blue armored elite minors emerged from the side nearest to the ODSTs. On the oppisite side several grunts lept down well yipping and barking to each other.

Hackman slowly crawled over to Driscoll and whispered to him "well what do you know, even those damn gas suckers gripe about going out on recon."

Driscoll looked at him with a slight smirk and a shake of the head before turning his attention back to the Covenant patrol. The elites signaled to the Spirit and its cargo bay doors swung shut and it slowly rose up of the ground and moved off. Driscoll watched nervously as the patrol fanned out and slowly moved through the charred section of forest. The patrol finally moved to the charred ruins of the ODST fire team's warthog. After a quick inspection one of the elites said something into his wrist piece. Seconds later the spirit returned, although it seemed to move with a greater urgency. As if to confirm that something was up, instead of landing to take on the patrol the spirt activated its grav lift. As soon as the last grunt disappeared into the drop ship it quickly moved off.

Driscoll slowly stood up and scanned the tree line with his binoculars. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw any covie drop ships in the air were heading away from his team's location. "Alright," he said, "we have another thirteen miles to the space port. Odds are we have a lot of and I mean A LOT of gas suckers and split jaws between us and said location. Shit, the only things we don't have a lot of is time, and ammo. Any questions?" Driscoll asked.

"Yea I got one," said Hackman, "just how fucked ARE we?"

"I have a feeling you don't want to know," said Dricoll.

"I vote we get a move on it," said Dyson as he flipped his M7 SMG into full auto mode.

Driscoll and Hackman glanced at each other and shrugged. Driscoll quickly pulled up the nav data on his wrist mounted tac-pad and transffered the way-points to his HUB.

Nine hours later the team arrived at the highway, roughly three mile from the space port. The team was dumb founded as the emerged on to the highway. Strewn on roughly a two mile stretch or road were the burnt out chaises of Scorpion MBTs, Warthogs, a pair of Grizzly HCTs, and even a half dozen wrecked Falcons. Mixed in with the vehicular carnage were the burnt corpses of hundreds of marines and ODSTs. Dyson stumbled back off the road and fell to his knees, he tore his helmet from his head and dropped it aside before vomiting as the stench of the burnt human remains slammed into his nostrils.

Hackman tapped Driscoll's shoulder and pointed a slight bit up the highway. Driscoll looked up and saw what Hackman was pointing at as a slight feeling of hope welled in his chest. Half a mile up the road was the wreckage of a breached Covenant roadblock full of the corpses of hundreds of grunts and jackals, a few dozen elites, and even a hunter pair or two.

"Maybe some broke through?" Hackman asked as he tried to help Dyson back to his feet.

"Sure looks like it." responded Driscoll. Dyson slowly whipped the vomit from his chin and re-attached his helmet.

"If this happened here... what if it happened at the space port?" Dyson asked with a noticeable panic in his tone.

"Don't worry solider, im sure the space port is still intact." said Hackman as he patted Dyson's shoulder. "Besides, we'll make sure you get through th-" before he could finish a needle spike from a needle riffle repelled off one of the smooth curves of his helmet. He shoved Dyson into the under brush as he yelled "SNIPER!" and dove behind one of the wrecked scorpions as Driscoll slide behind a burnt-out 'Hog.

"I'LL DRAW HIM OUT" yelled Driscoll. "THEN I WANT YOU TO TAKE THE SHOT!"

"ALRIGHT, WHEN YOUR READY!" yelled back Hackman as he adjusted the sites of his DMR. Driscoll took a breath and made a bolt across the highway towards the far side. As the two remaining Jackal snipers stepped up to pick off the ODST. As the first jackal lined up his shot a 7.62mm round from Hackman's DMR tore into the Jackal's skull just below its check, and blowing out his skull just above the right ear. The Jackal spotter looked over with and uttered a stunned screech just before another round slammed into his head just below the left ear blowing out the top of its skull.

Driscoll leaned out from behind a ruined falcon and gave Hackman a quick thumbs up, also taking note of Dyson also taking cover behind the tank. Driscoll quickly thumbed his ear peace "alright boys, if those snipers were there, odds are we're in for a fire fight." Driscoll said.

Only a few seconds later a pair of spirit drop ships swooped over and lowered don on the other side of the road block wreckage. A few seconds later they rose back up and speed off. Driscoll reached down to his thigh and snatched up his M6 and a frag grenade. He waited a few seconds until the first grunt hobbled out from behind cover before yanking the safety pin and lobbing the grenade. He was rewarded with the squeal of a grunt and the bang of a grenade.

He then heard Dyson's voice crackle over the comms, 'sir I count four grunts down from that, I'd say at least twenty-two still up. I also got three elites, one officer and two minors. This could get interesting!" yelled Dyson.

"Copy that marine. I want you two to lay down some fire and get there attention. I might be able to get a few more of those damn gas suckers before they realize theres only three of us." responded Driscoll. His response was two green acknowledgment lights and the sound of SMG and DMR fire. He peeked out and saw five of the grunts in a near by impact crater. He quickly grabbed his last frag grenade and lobbed it into the hole, blasting the grunts out. He quickly darted forward and snatched a needler from one of the dead grunts before sliding behind another warthog.

Suddenly he heard the unexpected sound of an MARV 12 machine gun. He peered out from behind his cover and saw Hackman in a damaged but still functioning Warthog's chain gun. Hackman managed to catch one of the minors off guard and cut him down. unfortunately for Hackman, the other minor managed to spring up and get a burst or plasma rifle fire off, striking him in his left shin. He yelled out in pain and fell back from the hog. As he fell the Officer managed to get two shots from his needle rifle off. One shot caught Hackman in his right shoulder well the other went wide. Driscoll jumped up and emptied the clip of the needler into the elite officer catching him off guard. The elite managed to swivel part way around before being blown apart by the super combine from the needles. The last elite leveled his plasma repeater on Driscoll and fired, catching him in the shoulder causing him to fall back.

Dyson leaped up and lobbed his three frag grenades into the covie position killing most grunt and causing the rest to scatter in confusion. The elite stumbled back stunned and falling to his knee. He roared and fired a sustained burst from his repeater towards where he thought Dyson was. Driscoll slide out from behind cover and fired a shot from his pistol, catching the de shielded elite in the head, blowing the left side of his head out.

Driscoll and Dyson ran over to where Hackman fell. "Fuck, he's in bad shape." said Driscoll. "He's still alive, but barley. We have to get him to the space port. The medics there should be able to help him." Driscoll said to Dyson.

"I can still... fucking... hear you." heaved Hackman as Dyson lifted him into the passenger seat of the 'Hog. Driscoll reached into the 'Hog and hot activated the hog which sputtered to life.

"Uh, sir?" Dyson asked, sounding as if he was on the verge of tears. Driscoll looked up and saw why. Hackman had already died.

"Fuck..." murmured Driscoll. "Well we can still get him off this shit hole. Get on the gun..." said Driscoll.

"Yes sir." muttered Dyson.

When Dyson was secure in the turret seat Driscoll floored the accelerator and the hog, slowly at first, moved off. It only took about twenty minutes to reach the entrance to the tunnel that lead to the space port. When the emerged on the other side Driscoll's heart sank. The space port was in ruins. As their 'Hog rolled past the wrecked security posts Driscoll could really see the extent of the damage. Even a wrecked UNSC Frigate lay burning off in one off the landing pens. The port was littered with the corpses of troopers and civilians alike.

"Stay on the gun..." muttered Driscoll as he stepped out of the driver seat of the 'Hog. He surveyed the damage. There was no chance anyone had survived, and Driscoll knew that. He had seen these types of Covenant raids before, fast, brutal, and merciless.

"So thats is?" asked Dyson with a mix of anger and sorrow. "We went through all this for what? To find out we were to late? To find out all of our friends DIED? And so wh—."

"Trooper if you don't shut the fuck up im gonna save the covies the trouble of killing you and just put a bullet through your skull on my own!" shouted Driscoll as he slammed his hand on the hood of the 'Hog. "You're an ODST for god's sakes! And your bitching like some last minute CMO conscript. Now if you want to make sure they didn't die in vain I want you to haul your sorry ass to the weapons tent and bring back anything still usable!"

"Yes sir." responded Dyson with an obvious hint of disdain in his voice.

As Dyson headed towards the weapons tent Driscoll drew his sidearm and walked off towards the wreckage of the comms tent. He braced himself on the side of the entrance flap, silently counted to three and darted in, pistol raised. The only things he found inside was wrecked equipment and a few dead marines. He sighed and began to turn away when a muffled voice from the collapsed portion of the tent caught his attention. He slowly walked over towards the down flap. As he raised it he saw the voice was coming from a damaged but still partly functioning radio.

"–rt to all UNSC personnel. This is a pre-recorded loop. If you are hearing this switch your comms channel to frequence ZULU 9-231. Alert to all–" said the voice broadcasting the message. _Worth a shot_ thought Driscoll as he entered the frequence into the machine.

"This is Sargent Allen Driscoll broadcasting from the remains of the Preston Cole Memorial Space Port. Does anyone read me?" Driscoll said into the transmitter.

"_This is UNSC forward operations base Hotel-94. I read you Driscoll, how copy?_" responded the voice.

"Loud and clear command. Shit am I glad to hear you. This place is a wreck, its only me and one of my men left. We need evac ASAP" said Driscoll with just enough urgency to really convey his point.

"_Understood Sargent. Falcon flight _Rapture-9 _is inbound to exfile you. ETA is twenty-three minutes."_ said the comms officer.

"Thanks command, I'll just sit ti–"

"_Hold up Sargent, I've got eight radar targets heading towards your location. I count two Banshee interceptors and six Spirit class drop ships, eta is eight minutes,_" said the comms officer with a clear sense of urgency.

"Copy command, I'll attempt to hold until Rapture-9 arrives. Driscoll out" responded Driscoll before he quickly moved out of the tent. When he got back to the warthog Dyson was waiting with a spread of weapons. "What you got?" asked Driscoll.

"Well," said Dyson, "I got one covenant plasma pistol with fifty-four percent charge, a new MA5B assault riffle with five mags, a Spartan laser with fifty-percent charge, and a few more clips for my SMG. How about you, any good news?"

"Good and bad. The good news, eta is eighteen-minutes for out evac." said Driscoll.

"And the bad news?"

"We got three minutes before we got two banshees over head and probably only a few minutes after that before we got six dropships spewing out covies." responded Driscoll.

"Well sarge, if your willing to get the banshee's attention when they show up I might be able to stop em." said Dyson.

"Deal," replied Driscoll. He quickly grabbed the Spartan laser and MA5B before dashing into the ruins. Dyson grabbed the plasma pistol and SMG mags and dove behind a pile of wreckage. Sure enough, three minutes later a pair of banshees swopped in over the space port. Driscoll looked out from his cover. He saw Dyson stick his hand out and give him a thumbs up.

With that Driscoll made a mad dash from his cover, firing off half a clip of ammo at the banshees. One of the banshees quickly angled off and blasted towards him at a blistering 88 mph. Driscoll turned and started running towards cover, bobbing and weaving as he went. The banshee fired its twin plasma cannons at Driscoll. Due to its extreme range the shots mainly went wide, only a few rounds impacted close enough to even let Driscoll know he was being fired at. He turned to look at the banshee just in time to see an overcharged blast from Dyson's plasma pistol hit the banshee broad side, frying the circuits int its controls, causing it to spin into the ground at full speed, erupting in a beautiful purple and white explosion.

The second banshee angled towards where it thought the plasma bolt came from and cut loose a sustained stream of blasts. Driscoll leaped from cover and fired his remaining half a clip at the banshee causing it to angle towards him. As it did Driscoll saw the red glow and target dot of a charging shot from a Spartan laser. A second later the brilliant red blast from the Spartan laser tore through the banshee. The banshee seemed to hang in the air for a mere half a second before blasting apart.

"OH YEAH!" yelled Dyson as he leaped from cover holding the near depleted laser.

"Nice shot there private." said Driscoll. "You still have one shot right?" he asked.

"Yes sir." responded Dyson.

"Good, the spirits will most likely do a pass over head before touching down. I want you to use that shot to wreck the lead Spirit's engine. Hopefully that will cut down on the amount of covies we're left with." said Driscoll. Dyson's response was a quick nod before melding back into the wreckage. Roughly a minute later six Spirt dropships soared in over the tree line. As the Spirits began to make their first banking turn the Spartan laser shot ripped through its engines causing it to spin into the ground. A few seconds after the damaged engines erupted, blasting the Spirit, and its crew, to ruins. The remaining five Spirts turned back and landed on t he opposite side of the space port's security wall. The two ODSTs darted for a rubble pile to the right of the entrance.

"Sir, I grabbed Hackman's dog tags. And, I have a plan if your willing to sacrifice the body" said Dyson with a hint of regret in his voice.

"What do you mean private?" asked Driscoll, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Well sir, I rigged up the 'Hog with a couple bricks of C-6. I know those bastard are gonna wanna investigate the corpse. When they do we blow the 'Hog and as many of the S O Bs as possible." grunted Dyson.

"It better work..." murmured Driscoll. Sure enough at least sixty grunts and twenty elites stormed into the Space port and fanned out. The ODSTs watched silently as two dozen grunts and six elites closed in on the hog. Just as one of the elites reached out to grab Hackman's body, Dyson blew the charges. Only one wounded and disoriented elite managed to hobble out of the smoke, just to collapse on the concrete. Driscoll looked at his mission clock. They only had four minutes until flight Rapture-9 arrived. He quickly thumbed his comms piece and yelled, "This Is Sargent Driscoll to Rapture-9, the LZ is gonna be a little hot, how-copy?"

"_This is Rapture-9 actual to Sargent Driscoll. Don't worry about that, we got three Falcons on this flight_ _and we all are itching to go loud"_ responded the pilot

Driscoll tapped Dyson on his shoulder and gave him the hand signal to open fire. The two of them blew away the trio of grunts that had came forward to try to help the downed elite. The ODST pair was forced to duck and roll back as one of the elites came around one of the wrecked structures and fired off its fuel rod gun. Driscoll and Dyson dove from their ruble pile just in time to avoid being turned into scorched meat as the fuel rods blasted the upper half of the ruble to vapor. Driscoll moved from the smouldering ruble and fired a six round burst into the covenant troops and causing on elites shields to flair. He turned just in time to see the forearm of an elite slam into his chest sending him back and in pain. The elite stood over him about to fire when Dyson dove from the top of one of the rubble piles and dug his combat knife into the elite's neck. The elite dropped his plasma rifle and roared in pain as it grabbed Dyson and flipped him over his shoulder. Driscoll grabbed his pistol from his thigh holster and put two round into the elites skull. Dyson ran over and quickly helped Driscoll up. They looked to see the covenant forces storming across the wrecked court yard. Then the leading few grunts shredded apart. Driscoll looked skyward in surprise. He started laughing in joy as two falcons began hovering overhead, main guns and cargo bay mounted machine guns spraying into the advancing troops.

The third Falcon swooped in low coming to a hover twenty feet from the ODSTs. The Falcon gunner quickly waved them towards the falcon before pivoting the gun to fire at the scattering hostels. Dyson carried Driscoll to the Falcon. The other gunner reached over and helped drag Driscoll aboard well Dyson climbed into one of the seats. As soon as they were in the Falcon quickly pulled up well the other two pivoted and also began to fly off station. In the distance Driscoll could see a hovering UNSC carrier. He smiled and closed his eyes, knowing he and Dyson were finally on the way out.

As the Falcons touched down in the hanger of the UNSC carrier _Montgomery_. Medics quickly ran over and moved him to a gurney. A few hours and a lung fixing surgery later, Driscoll awoke in the med bay. He looked around in stunned disbelief. Around him was not only Dyson like he was expecting, but eight of his other troops.

"Awake sarge?" asked Dyson with a huge grin across his face.

"Dyson, how are they...?" asked Driscoll.

"We reached the fire base before the raid sir. We lost Duke and Brysen during the evac sir." said Corporal Lucy Straigham. "We thought we lost you three also."

"Yea, and we thought we lost you all." said Driscoll as a large smile spread across his face. "Where are we now?" he asked.

"We're at the Luna ship yards sir. Sol system. Earth's moon." said Dyson. "We're all home safe."

Driscoll let out a short sigh and looked out the medbay window. "Not all of us..." he murmured to himself.

-End


End file.
